


take me home before the storm

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (2011)
Genre: Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-11
Updated: 2011-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-22 12:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay. Go over it again: they were walking, they were doing-- they were doing-- alright, not important. They were walking, they got grabbed and he wound up here. When they pulled him from his men, he fought but they fought harder and now he was done fighting but they still fought him pretty hard. (It doesn't count as fighting if he's not trying, does it?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	take me home before the storm

**Author's Note:**

> this was another one of those situations where I told myself, upon discovering the [meme for this film](http://capkink.livejournal.com), that I was only there to _read_ and not write but then, of course, I found [this prompt](http://capkink.livejournal.com/810.html?thread=108586#t155690) and I had to take hold of it. I don't know what it was, but I wound up leaving the theater loving Bucky most of all (which I'm not sure was the point, considering his minimal screen-time) so, finding a chance to write for him? well. sign me up. as I say with every fill I ever write: I really hope this is even a little bit close to what you wanted. anonymous commenting is on. also: I am fully aware that the cardiac event monitor (Holter monitor or, as I called it when I tried to look up it's proper name on google, the "beep beep machine") wasn't invented until 1949 and didn't get clinical use until the 1960s and this movie takes place a few years before the darn machine was probably ever a sparkle in Norman J. Holter's eye. all I'm trying to say is that I know I mention a machine in this story somewhere that sounds curiously like a heart monitor but I think we can pretend it's just a weird, random machine because I don't want to be yelled at for screwing something up okay.

He tastes metal and, for a moment, thinks that it's blood but he opens his eyes to realize that it is, instead, a blurry shape of a man pushing a gun into his mouth. "Oh," he thinks, his tongue pushing against the barrel and his teeth starting to ache, "this is new".

When he wakes up again, the taste is gone and he's still alive so he figures, yeah, okay, the guy didn't shoot him in the head or anything but maybe he's got a hole somewhere else where a hole doesn't belong. He's at a point where he feels nothing except the inside of his mouth and his eyelashes when he blinks slowly and who the hell knows what these bastards have pumped into him and… he's getting off topic, off track --

\-- Where the _fuck_ is he.

Okay. Go over it again: they were walking, they were doing-- they were doing-- alright, not important. They were walking, they got grabbed and he wound up here. When they pulled him from his men, he fought but they fought harder and now he was done fighting but they still fought him pretty hard. (It doesn't count as fighting if he's not trying, does it?)

So, right. He's here. On a table with guys in long coats and gloves and weird accents poking and prodding and hitting and sticking guns into his face for kicks. This really wasn't part of the plan.

Because, yes, he had a plan. Getting slapped in the face repeatedly wasn't it. (Not this time, anyway.)

"You are awake."

He tries to move his head, just an inch or two because if he could _just look at the bastard's face_ and maybe remember it then it would seem like he was making progress but all he could stare at was the ceiling even when he counted slowly backwards (and then forwards) from ten. Something stung, pushing through his arm and he feels warm (so very, very warm) but, yeah, that isn't going to last because it never did. It always felt good at first, like he was swallowing bubbles and rolling around on his sunlit kitchen floor back home.

But then he might as well have been dropped from a ten story building onto a bed of broken nails.

Nothing changed this time.

\- -

He felt like he was falling.

But it's okay, just as long as he doesn't hit the ground.

\- -

It hurts. It hurts a lot.

He thinks about shouting but all he can do is think about it. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out except for a rush of wheezing air. Something beeps and chirps next to him and it gets louder, louder, louder and faster, faster and he's wondering what exactly this fucking thing is that's driving him up a wall and making it impossible for him to even curl a finger when his vision goes grey and then blurry and then white and then pitch black.

All he can hear is BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP until he's gone.

\- -

He feels like he's died.

Not that he could ever actually know what that felt like because the only experience he's had with death is killing someone else (he's done that, more than once and each time it's like a blow to the sides of his head and his stomach and, yes, he's serving his country, fighting the good fight but it also just makes it a little terrible) or watching his friends die (he watches them take their final breath, their final exhale as they hold his hand and something tickles under his skin but it's okay to just ignore it) but he imagines this is what dying or almost dying or dying and then coming back (is that what happened? Out of all three of those the most plausible is the first but considering where he is and who's having parties with his body he wouldn't be surprised if they killed him and then brought him back just for the hell of it) feels like.

But he felt it anyway.

It felt like falling. Except this time, he's hit the bottom.

\- -

There's metal in his mouth again and he figures, okay, it's another gun (and haven't they gotten tired of this yet?) but his tongue feels nothing but liquid and, oh, great. It's blood. He tries to spit it out because that's what you do when the inside of your mouth is swimming in thick blood but if he does, he's going to get it everywhere _but_ the floor so he does the only other thing and he swallows.

He gags but nothing comes up except a bit more blood.

Somebody behind him laughs.

\- -

He's jerking uncontrollably, twitching against his restraints.

It doesn't hurt. It just feels… strange.

Twitch, twitch, twitch. Twitch.

It gets worse (as worse as it can get when you're being held down to a table) and it's making him go cross-eyed, his face, eyelids, cheeks twitching along with the rest of him and his hands freeze like claws and maybe he's dying again.

Yeah, maybe.

That would be nice.

\- -

He didn't die. (Again)

He only knows this because when he wakes up, he doesn't feel the same way he did when he died (or almost died) before.

Now he's just exhausted (and hungry; why is he hungry?). There's a disappointment lingering like heavy smoke in the air like maybe he was _supposed_ to die but everything didn't go as expected. They'd probably try again. Or, maybe give up. (They haven't given up yet, but he had some minuscule hope).

\- -

How long has he been here exactly?

\- -

Somebody was pouring alcohol in his face.

He moved his tongue across his dry lips and whatever it was was strong and did little to control his insane thirst but it was still something and he only vaguely wondered when they stopped and walked away why they were doing it in the first place.

\- -

(It wasn't alcohol.)

\- -

Something was burning.

Wouldn't it just be something if it was him?

(It's not him but it smells close enough that he's kind of concerned and then oddly elated because he thinks he's losing some control over his emotions. He never finds out what it is.)

\- -

So much shouting and gunfire.

So

much.

He thinks he's hallucinating because, eventually, after everything he's been forced through, it's going to mess with your head, just a bit. He considers going back to sleep because what was the point, really?

But then a guy with a familiar face but not a familiar anything else is hovering over him and saying _words_ and Bucky isn't sure how he's talking back but it's apparently happening and the only information he retains when he's pulled sloppily to his feet is that this guy is really strong and

and that this guy is _Steve_.

\- -

He doesn't know what's happening, doesn't remember anything until they're suddenly outside, walking, free and then _shit_ everything kind of collapses on him at once.

His head is full of rusty screws being turned ever so slowly into his skull.

His bones (his _muscles_ ) feel like they've been grated raw.

He can't move. He can't _move_.

Stumbling, tripping over his own feet, over the smallest of pebbles in the dirt road stretched ahead of them and he's falling behind, dizzy and --

Fuck. It's unbearable.

It's worse than unbearable, if that's possible. (It is, it is right now).

Steve has a hand on Bucky's arm and then an arm around his waist and then they're both on the ground and all the other soldiers have stopped to construct a human wall, a circle around them, built with curiosity and an instinct to protect. They stare and stare and mutter and mumble and Bucky wants to tell them to shut up, to stop because it's driving him crazy, making his head feel worse but the words won't come out _they won't come out_ so instead he just sits there, back pressing against Steve's new chest and feels a hand moving along his forehead and through his hair, over and over and over and so comforting.

He probably smells, smells like a thousand horrible things, a million bits and pieces of his torture, of his captors but it's like Steve doesn't really notice.

"Hey man," one of the soldiers finally says and Bucky can barely hear him, like he's a few hundred feet away but he knows that isn't true, "Is he okay?"

"I don't know," Steve is saying and then: "Bucky. You're gonna be fine." It's not a question, it's a command.

Bucky wants to believe it (really, he does, especially with the words coming right from Steve) but, right now?

Yeah, no. He just quite can't.

\- -

Somehow, he gets up.

Somehow, he manages to walk. One foot in front of the other.

One

foot

at

a

time.

He can sense Steve staring, watching every muscle move, can feel the tension because the guy is ready to catch him again but Bucky won't let himself fall. Even with the world spinning dizzyingly around him, he _won't fall_. Even though his nerves feel as if someone has rubbed a rough stone back and forth over them until they were frayed, the invisible screws in his head tighter, his mouth dry and cottony, he keeps going.

It's not until the sun is beginning to rise, when Steve declares that they could take a few hours that Bucky finally gives in.

Dropping to his knees, he vomits a few times and only stops out of exhaustion. He moves over and then falls forward, cheek and palms pressed into the cool and sweet smelling dirt and grass.

His eyes

slowly

close.

\- -

He wakes up screaming.

His head had been turned so it was buried in Steve's chest, most likely to muffle the sound and even though Bucky was, eventually, fully aware that it was, indeed, _him_ making that noise, he continued, reaching up to curl fingers into Steve's shirt.

He screams and screams and screams until his throat aches.

Steve never says a thing.

So Bucky screams some more.

\- -

"You should eat."

"Not hungry."

"Bucky."

"Steve."

"Eat something."

"No."

"At least have some water."

"Leave me alone."

"It's not your fault."

"What?"

"What they did to you. It's not your fault."

"And?"

"You don't have to punish yourself."

"I don't have to."

"Having to" and "wanting to", though, are two completely different things.

Bucky takes the water just so Steve will stop looking at him like any second he might explode.

All the chemicals that were mixed in his veins, Bucky honestly wouldn't be surprised.

\- -

"I'm sorry," Steve says quietly awhile later, once they're all walking again and Bucky almost misses it. "I'm sorry this happened to you."

"Yeah," Bucky sighs, "Yeah. Me too."


End file.
